70 results for author: Geoffrey James

Psychologists and neuroscientists agree that the ongoing exercise of power can damage your brain as badly as a serious head injury.
I've interviewed probably a hundred CEOs and, with few exceptions, my observation has been "the bigger the company, the ...Read More

Working in sales is one of the easiest ways to break into an industry that truly excites you.
Finding your dream job – or gaining the experience you need to start your own dream company – often means changing industries and gaining experience. ...Read More

Nobody ever says on his deathbed: "I wish I'd spent more time at the office."
As I mentioned in my most recent column, I had a "cardiac incident" while camping with my 12-year-old son.
It started as a burning in the center of my chest and a drenching ...Read More

Over the years, I've interviewed hundreds of CEOs and top executives to discover the core beliefs and personality traits that made them successful. Sometimes I run across horrible bosses who are monetarily successful but who are miserable to work for, ...Read More

The worst brand scandals of the year were mostly about sexism or racism.
In the decade I've been posting about the year's worst brand disasters, I've never seen a year where most of the big scandals involved either sexism or racism. In 2017, sexual ...Read More

I have absolutely no advice for people starting their first jobs, since my first paying job was playing electric bass in a rock band. All I learned was that musicians perform better when they show up sober.
Because I've got nothing on this subject, ...Read More

Customers expect you to know everything about them before you attempt to contact them.
Back in the day, salespeople were trained to ask "effective questions" to discover customer needs. Today, however, much of what a salesperson needs to know about a ...Read More

My editor asked me for a list of things that startup entrepreneurs should address early lest they turn into problems as a company grows. Since scaling up is not my area of expertise, I asked Stanford professor Robert I. Sutton, co-author of Scaling Up ...Read More

With the economy expanding, many companies may be looking to grow their customer base. While that usually means hiring more salespeople, the best companies support their sales stars with crack marketing teams.
Hiring great marketers can be challenging, ...Read More

Publicly-held firms are increasingly intolerant of executives who appear to behave unethically.
Part of Donald Trump's appeal to a certain segment of the American public is the idea that government would be more effective if run like a business. Ironica...Read More

Brainstorming, group writing, and "designs by committee" are huge wastes of time and money.
For six decades, business pundits have hyped "collaboration" as a way of making your organizations more innovative. They were wrong then and they're still wrong ...Read More

I recently received some job-hunting advice from Early Stage Careers, a firm that works with college students and grads to get good jobs.
Most of that advice was excellent and I'll probably be sharing it with you in subsequent columns. However, their ...Read More